Category Archives: Events and Classes

My apologies for taking so long to get this last blog up. As soon as the final session was over on Sunday we had to jump in the car and head home. For me that was two days of car travel, but then once back home I turned right back around and started on another trip out west to visit more family. I’m writing this now from a hotel room in Tulsa. It’s kind of crazy to go from a weekend of fabulously healthy, farm fresh food for three meals a day straight into the food deserts of the airports and life on the road. I’m thankful to have found Zukay Live Foods Super Gold spicy beet kvass at the Tulsa Whole Foods yesterday. Dr. Mercola said one serving of fermented vegetables (this kvass qualifies for that!) is equal to a whole bottle of probiotic supplements. Ok, on to my synopsis of the final day’s sessions….

I began the morning in a packed house to hear Dr. Joe Mercola. As usual, he was engaging and funny and had lots of good ideas. His loosely-organized talk on the failed drug system of conventional medicine was really an overview of his own recipe to take control of your own health. He had 12 bullet points with accompanying power point photo illustrations. I’ll list them here, but if you’ve spent any time on his website you are probably familiar with many already. The title of the talk could also be “Optimize Your Gut Flora”. 1. No sugar (you knew this was important!) 2. Reduce grains (or for the bold, eliminate grains entirely) 3. Eat lots of good vegetables and sprouts 4. Eat fermented vegetables, learn to ferment your own vegetables and fruits. We surprised Joe on this one…he said for anyone who had ever made their own fermented vegetables to raise their hand. Pretty much the whole room held hands high, and he was blown away. Said he’d never talked to an audience where the vast majority were fermenters much less even knew about it. This is when he told us that a 2-3oz serving of fermented vegetables has 100 trillion beneficial bacteria and is equal to an entire bottle of probiotic supplements. 6. Grow and eat your own sprouts. He recommends sprouting in soil rather than just in a sprouting dish. Sprouts have 30x the nutrients as the mature vegetable with sunflower seed sprouts being the highest. There are directions on his website on how to sprout using trays of soil. Takes about 5 days from start to finish. 7. Drink pure water. He said this was a good “gateway” first step for anyone wanting to begin the journey to health. 8. Eat a HIGH FAT diet. Especially for anyone who is currently insulin or leptin resistant he recommends using intermittent fasting techniques and converting to a fat-adapted diet rather than a glucose-burning diet. On the topic of fat-burning and eating high fat (good fats like coconut oil, butter) that insulin and leptin resistance lead to heart disease and cancer. Another moment of surprise for Dr. Mercola came when he asked anyone who has had a heart attack to raise their hand. In the packed auditorium of several hundred people only one person raised their hand – Mercola was stunned saying he attributed the low heart attack count to our healthy WAPF diets. 9. Exercise was next. Cardio, he says, is not the most efficient. Better exercise is one that activates fast twitch muscles such as the Peak 8 training program. Great photo from this segment was a picture of a comfy chair with the caption “sitting kills”. 10. Grounding or Earthing – going barefoot on the earth or ocean activating a free flow of electrons to replicate natural principles to help naturally thin your blood. 11. Keep cell phones off and away from your body. 12. Small initiatives can make a big differences: say no to GMOs, Fluoride removal from city water supplies, ban mercury in dentistry, and the National Vaccine Information Center.

From Mercola I went upstairs to a more intimate classroom area to hear Dr. Deborah Gordon speak about Preventing Breast Cancer. This class was packed full of information, so much so that I want to do a more in-depth blog just on this topic. So what I give you here is just the surface of the deep pool. First of all it is important to know that Prevention does not equal Detection. 68% of women actually think mammograms prevent breast cancer. The industry claims they are the only way, but in reality there are many things you can do to help prevent breast cancer (and all cancers). Prevention can come both before and after a diagnosis of breast cancer. It is important to know your personal risk factor. The Cancer.gov website has a Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool you can use to start with. Don’t stop there. Know about all the risk factors. Things like family history, age, race, age of menstruation/menopause, age of first full-term pregnancy, and breastfeeding all play a role. We have all heard of BRCA genes and while genetics themselves are fixed the epigenetics are modifiable. This means the environment we live in and the lifestyle we live. Exposure to radiation, carcinogens, toxic hormone modifiers and other substances are all risk factors we can lower or eliminate by lifestyle choices. Biggest is with food, personal care products, our homes and our lives. Keep cell phones away from your body and NEVER carry them in your bra! Choose organic foods and non-toxic cosmetics and cleaners. Parabens in deodorants are big cancer offenders. Use the EWG’s Skin Deep website to find good products. Never put anything on your skin you can’t safely eat. Sleep in a completely dark room, exercise – especially intense exercise for better hormone/metabolism/insulin. Have a little red wine – One 6oz serving per day at most. Manage your stress! Stress hormones kept low allow all your other glands to operate optimally! Eliminate sugar – many cancers are dependent on sugar, but humans are not. Vitamin D, probiotics, fermented foods, iodine, selenium, turmeric are all good. Statins double the risk of breast cancer.

Third up was a lecture called “Failed Promises-Flawed Science” from retired Col. Dr. Huber, Professor Emeritus Purdue University. Dr. Huber’s research into GMOs is legendary and stretches back 20 years or more to the inception of the biotech industry. This was another lecture that deserves its own blog post (or two or three). For this lecture he focused mainly on the herbicide glyphosate, brand name “Round Up”, used in GMO agriculture. Setting aside the actual GMO plants we learned that glyphosate on its own was a huge problem. It is a chelator of all cations, inhibits enzymes, shuts down the shikimate pathway (which I wrote about here), is a strong antibiotic (glyphosate was first marketed as an antibiotic before being used as an herbicide), and accumulates in shoot, root and reproductive tissues, accumulates in the soils, is toxic to beneficial soil organisms and just all-around nasty. Because of widespread glyphosate usage we are now seeing re-emergence of old diseases as well as brand new ones. Things like Corynespora Root Rot, Goss’ Wilt of Corn, Take-All of Wheat and Sudden Death Syndrome are all plaguing farmers now. It only takes 1/2 oz per ACRE of glyphosate to damage crops with low vigor, lower yields, and lower mineral values. Even after 30 years the glyphosate is still present in fields – it doesn’t go away. Now on to the crops themselves….There is a reduction in the nutrients from 13%-52% in RoundUp Ready (RR) crops. It takes extra fertilizer and micronutrients just to get these crops out of the ground. Animals fed GMO feed struggle due to nutrient deficiencies directly as a result of deficient feed plants. RR plants have a high amount of formaldehyde and contain at least 13% glyphosate within the plant itself. Mice and squirrels will ignore GMO feed corn due to the formaldehyde content. 80% of the beef livers from commercially raised and slaughtered cows have to be thrown away directly due to the premature aging from the GMO feed. 20% of all pregnancies in commercially raised dairy cattle are lost due to insufficiencies in the feed. Erosion of the stomach and intestines from GMO soy and corn reproduce symptoms of autism in herds of animals eating GMO feed. When the GMO feed is removed the symptoms go away. Glyphosate presents long-term toxicity to liver, kidney and tissues and is a long-term carcinogen. Refining oils from GMO crops (soy, canola) concentrates this effect. We even have a new disease called Morgellan’s disease linked to GMOs.

buchi was a sponsor for Wise Traditions

The last session of the day was Kombucha and Cancer Therapies – Historic and Modern from Kombucha Kamp found Hannah Crum. Hannah’s bubbly personality spilled out like effervescent kombucha bringing a joyful tone to the serious topic of cancer. Something I knew but forgot was that kombucha is not a lacto-fermented beverage like kefir or kvass. Instead it is an acetic acid ferment similar to apple cider vinegar. Vinegar is about 5% acetic acid while kombucha is a more drinkable 1%. Hannah repeated what Deborah Gordon said about cancer being caused by environmental factors such as diet, toxins, lack of exercise and radiation. Much of the research done on kombucha is from other countries where kombucha consumption is more the norm than it is in the US. Stalin urged research on kombucha in the 1800s because he feared getting cancer. His scientists discovered a population in Russia living near an asbestos mine that should have been sick but instead the people were healthy – they drank kombucha. Dr. Rudolf Sklenar in Germany used kombucha to prevent cancer as well as treat and cure it using daily protocols of probiotics and kombucha. More recent research shows promise using kombucha to help heal diabetes, to repair kidneys from exposure to toxins such as carcinogenic solvents, to lower levels of radiation poisoning and to reduce human cancer cell activity. Hannah gave an in depth look at all the good things in kombucha from polyphenols to healing acids, and talked about how kombucha is a “gateway ferment”. People who are new to fermented foods often like kombucha just because it’s fizzy and it tastes good, but they keep drinking it because it makes them feel good.

Next year Wise Traditions 2014 will be in Indianapolis – I hope you can attend!

Wise Traditions 2013 Day Two I’m just doing a synopsis of everything instead of in-depth on one thing today:

First talk was by Chris Masterjohn: Fat-soluble vitamins in the prevention of heart disease

He gave a lengthy description of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D & K and talked about how they are best absorbed from true fully-formed sources that are found only in animal foods including fatty fish, butter, eggs and the fat of animals living out of doors. K2 is also found in fermented foods. Then he described how blood clots form and how arteries get clogged (It’s not what you think – best quote of the talk “Arteries are nothing like pipes!” Plaque occurs underneath the lining of the blood vessel and pushes the artery wall out and backward (not narrower) until it eventually ruptures. The rupture then fills with more plaque and only after successive ruptures does the artery become distorted and narrow. Most of the plaque is made from damaged polyunsaturated fats that were captured and capped off to prevent oxidative damage until the body could successfully eliminate them. Trouble is unhealthy people can’t eliminate damaged fats so they continue to pile up and pile up eventually rupturing the artery.

The fat-soluble vitamins protect by allowing special proteins to bind with calcium and direct it out of the blood and soft tissues and into the bones and teeth where it belongs. Vitamins A&D are both important. One without the other can become toxic, they work together. Vitamin K is supported by A&D. They all work to keep us healthy.

Second session was Kaayla Daniel, author of The Whole Soy Story, who has written a new book on bone broth which will be out next year. Kaayla gave a long history of gelatin and canned soups and eventually got down to explaining about the good things in broth which include the following: Gelatin, collagen, cartilage, marrow, proteoglycans (a new word for me that means essential sugars). Broth is useful in forming healthy bone matrix, keeping healthy joints, speeding wound healing, curing some forms of cancer, and curing infections.

Kate Rheaume-Bleue

Kate Rheaume-Bleue was the third presenter I heard today. She has a wonderful new book called Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox: How a Little Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life. She explained the new research showing those who take calcium supplements are dying of calcified arteries, heart attack and stroke. “Research being done is raising questions that can’t be answered by the research being done.” Turns out we are calcifying ourselves to death because we are deficient in the fat-soluble vitamin K2. This vitamin is essential – meaning we have to eat it because we cannot manufacture it. But industrial farming and CAFOs have depleted it from our food supply, we eat far less fermented foods than before, and trans fats block K2 activity making a ‘demented’ form of K2 we can’t use. In factcrowded teeth are almost entirely caused by K2 deficiency during growth years. Women who eat more cheese while they are pregnant (cheese is a good source of K2) will have children with better teeth. K2 takes calcium and puts it where it belongs – in the bones, not in the soft tissues. K2 also counteracts the effects of menopause, heals varicose veins and works as an anti-wrinkle substance. Good food sources of K2 are natto, goose liver, gouda and brie cheese, egg yolk, butter, chicken liver, chicken meat, ground beef, bacon, calf liver, sauerkraut, raw milk, salmon, fish eggs, butter oil and ghee (all animal sources need to be grassfed for optimal K2).

Finally I heard a heartfelt presentation from Kim Schuette of Biodynamic Wellness on the Recovery from Bipolar Disorder, Epilepsy and Type 1 Diabetes. Kim explained how the Affordable Healthcare Act was depending on healthy young people to sign up in order to offset the expense of caring for the aging patients. However the government did not take into account the rocketing rise in the rate of mental health issues afflicting our younger population. 150,000 new cases of epilepsy are diagnosed daily, type 1 diabetes rates have risen 23% from 2001 to 2009. Strong mental health begins with a strong and healthy gut flora population. But many things damage the gut including improperly prepared grains, pasteurized dairy, sugar, toxic metals and chemicals, antibiotics and chlorinated water. Damaged gut wall eventually results in leaky gut, immune system overload and eventually allergies. The only way to heal is to eliminate the offending items, nourish the body with real food, detox from the ordeal and repair the gut. Nourishing foods include fats as the foundation of all healthy hormones and cell membranes, minerals that act as catalysts to assist the body in utilizing the vitamins, detoxing our bodies and assisting the liver to clean it out, exercising to stimulate the lymph system and repairing with more healthy fats. Early intervention is always best. The GAPS diet is helpful in doing all of these steps to recovery. Kim then went on to relate four different case studies from her own patients. One teenage girl had bipolar at age 9 and was considered a hopeless case by her doctor. She is now completely healed and living a normal life. Another young boy at age 2 had seizures and went blind and his parents were told to institutionalize him. He is now on the path to wellness, has regained his sight and is able to talk and interact with his family. One young lady was cured of her type 1 diabetes and is now completely off her insulin.

I love hearing the amazing stories of healing and hope given by the wonderful presenters. Tomorrow is the final day. More exciting information to come!

Today was Day One of the 2013 Wise Traditions conference of the Weston A Price Foundation in Atlanta, GA. I spent the whole day, from 10a.m. to 5p.m., listening to Louisa Williams, author of Radical Nutrition. I have tons of notes and lecture handouts, but I just want to put things down in writing here to help cement in my brain everything that she said. So I’m afraid this won’t be very organized, just going to stream out what I have down and hope it will be of help to you too.

Louisa Williams’ topic today was Removing the Obstacles to Cure. You can go to her website, radicalmedicine.com to learn more about her and her medical practice. Her book, Radical Medicine, is an in-depth look at curing acute and chronic illness from a holistic and homeopathic viewpoint.

Here goes….The 20th century was a time of radical change, both for the good and for the bad. Good things include the advancements made in hygiene and sanitation such as indoor plumbing, running water, daily baths and showers; also other areas of sanitation in daily living; and the invention of refrigeration including home refrigerators to keep food fresh.

The list of bad things that came out of the 20th century make up a list that Dr. Williams calls “7 Major Toxic Insults”.

1. The invention and subsequent widespread use of petrochemicals such as insecticides that have found their way into the water, air and soil.

2. Mercury amalgam fillings in every baby boomer’s mouth. Mercury fillings were developed to fill a need for ‘cheap, easy and fast’ ways to fill the ever increasing amounts of cavities in the general population.

3. Widespread mandatory injections of vaccines. In 1950 a total of 7 vaccines per child were required. Now by the time a child reaches college they will receive 69 vaccines. Dr. Sabin, the co-inventor of the polio vaccine, spoke out against vaccines saying “they are a failure”. Tim O’Shea states “vaccination is not immunization” there have been no double-blind tests done on vaccines.

6. Direct-to-consumer advertising, which first began in 1997, to have celebrity endorsements and advertising of prescription drugs directly to the general public rather than to the medical community.

7. Overuse of antibiotics

A healthy lifestyle is no longer enough to achieve good health in the face of the 7 Toxic Insults. We must use natural healing according to the wise traditions of our ancestors.

When you remove the toxic obstacles to healing then your amazing Weston A Price diet will work.

Allopathic medicine – “other than or against” the disease. Treat disease by using medicine antagonists and suppressors to disease symptoms, such as antihistamins, antitussives anti-inflammatory, antibiotic

Naturopathic – support body’s immune system to heal itself.

Pesticide use: in 1950 10% of cornfields were sprayed, In 1993 99% of cornfields were sprayed, In 1929 the Swann Chemical company (later incorporated by Monsanto) made the first PCBs which were subsequently banned in 1976, but PCBs are still found all over the globe.

Read Stolen Future by Theo Colborn

Environmental Working Group study in 2002 “Body Burden” – average baby as 200 toxic chemicals in their cord blood at birth – placenta does not protect. The mother must avoid these chemicals if the baby is to stay unexposed. So how do we change? How do we protect ourselves? CHANGE PERSONAL CARE AND CLEANING PRODUCTS! This is one of the most simple and important ways to detox – change your cosmetics and soaps! Read the labels!

The cosmetic industry in Europe highly regulates their ingredients. The FDA does none. Regulation is given to the industry itself. Even companies with holistic reputation use bad ingredients. Solvents used to extract ingredients are not required to be listed at all in spite of residue remaining in the product.

EPA study in 1991 found toxic solvents in 100% of all perfumes. 95% of all perfumes contained other toxic chemicals.

Detoxification support can be enhanced with “Russian Algae” from Biosuperfood F1. It is strong enough to detox radiation poisoning and heavy metal poisoning. Binds toxic metals and chemicals to eliminate them. www.bioage.com This supplement also functions as a multi-vitamin.

Back pain is hardly ever just back pain. It is inflammation of vital organs manifesting elsewhere in the body.

Supplements are not always good either. Many are synthetic vitamin isolates, inorganic minerals and toxic excipients. Read Empty Harvest by Dr. Bernard Jensen and Mark Anderson. Even back in 1936 99% of Americans were deficient in minerals. Beware of the “other” ingredients in your supplements. Stearates are hydrogenated cottonseed oil. Magnesium stearate reduces the absorption of the actual supplement. >>a good vitamin C is Pure Radiance C from www.thesynergycompany.com

Time-release medicines are coated in phthalates. U.S. is most highly medicated and vaccinated country and yet we rank 29th in life expectancy.

Dr. Barbara Starfield in JAMA 2000 reported allopathic medicine itself was the 3rd leading cause of death in hospitals. Google Death By Medicine – Dr. Gary Null

1 in 4 people over age 45 are on statin drugs. Read The Great Cholesterol Con, Watch StatinNation: The Great Cholesterol Cover-up DVD

We must remove the obstacles to cure found in our personal care products, cleaners, cars and supplements. International College of Applied Kinesiology can recommend practitioners and dentists. Also check www.Primaldocs.com

That was the end for session 1. There are 2 more sessions but it is late and I will stop here.

When you see your first kombucha culture it is easy to imagine that it might be some ancient creature from a forgotten civilization. The kombucha beverage itself defies exact description as it can be both tart yet somewhat sweet, effervescent yet not really carbonated. The mystique surrounding kombucha only grows when you inquire about its health-giving properties. From the Russian provinces come reports of certain kombucha-drinking districts that appeared to be immune to the cancer and alcoholism plaguing other parts of the country. Asiatic populations have used it for centuries to combat fatigue, tension, hardening of the arteries, gout, rheumatism, hemorrhoids and diabetes. Other people find kombucha to be effective against headaches, constipation, arthritis, and irritability.

Yet kombucha is fairly new to the US. Trendy Hollywood starlets have been photographed with bottles of kombucha as they stroll around town. Pricey bottles with fancy labels line the refrigerated shelves in upscale health food stores. Still many Americans have never even heard of it. Before commercial brewers made the beverage widely available, kombucha developed a wide following in the 1990s by immune-compromised people looking for alternative treatments to conventional drugs. Kombucha’s low-carb qualities helped boost it into the mainstream in the early 2000s as dieters began looking for sugary soda alternatives.

Kombucha truly is ancient. According to Tom Valentine of Search for Health magazine ( http://www.kombu.de/val-gwf.htm ), kombucha derives its name from a Korean physician, Kombu, who was called to treat the Japanese Emperor Inkyo back around the year 415 A.D. Longstanding Russian tradition calls the beverage “tea kvass” made from “Japanese mushroom”. Even the culture itself goes by several names. Names include tea fungus, sponge, mushroom and SCOBY. This last name is an acronym, and is probably the most accurate. It stands for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast.

How does the culture work and what does it really do? The kombucha SCOBY takes tea and sugar and ferments it, or cultures it, to make a powerful probiotic beverage full of beneficial acids, helpful enzymes and a wide spectrum of vitamins. The culture feeds on the sugar and tea producing these wonderful acids and vitamins. Star among the acids is glucuronic acid. Additional acids include lactic acid, acetic acid, usnic acid, oxalic acid, malic acid, gluconic acid and butyric acid. These various acids aid in digestion and assimilation of nutrients, provide antiviral properties, inhibit harmful bacteria, work synergistically with other nutrients, and aid in cell energy production. The main benefit of kombucha may come from the detoxifying effects of all of these components working together. Our bodies profit from kombucha due to these detoxifying effects.

Healthy livers make plenty of glucuronic acid in order to bind it to toxins that come from day-to-day metabolism and also from our environment. These toxins bind with glucuronic acid and are then sent to the excretory system and eliminated from our bodies. Toxins bound to glucuronic acid cannot be reabsorbed, so once they are bound up we are rid of them. Perscription drugs and antibiotics, pesticides, painkillers, even just eating too much sugar are all things that can damage a healthy liver. This begins a vicious cycle when our body’s detoxification system is damaged and we begin to suffer more disease and so we need more perscriptions to combat them which causes more damage and so on. The support received from the kombucha’s supply of glucuronic acid can be just what our bodies need to break free from this cycle.Kombucha is easy to make at home. You can make gallons of refreshing, probiotic kombucha that cost less than one pint jar purchased from a health food store. You can flavor your home brewed kombucha in any way you like making custom-flavors not available in stores. Well Fed Family offers classes on home brewing kombucha. These classes include a starter jar and a SCOBY for each class participant. Contact us at healthyeating@wellfedfamily.net to schedule a class with your friends or to find out if we have an upcoming class available.

Fifty-two countries and 436 cities around the world held protest rallies Saturday, May 25th, against GMO-giant Monsanto. From Los Angeles to Orlando, people came out in force to show solidarity against GMO foods, GMO seeds and the corporate mega-power money that allows special above-the-law status for biotech bully Monsanto.

Saturday’s rally at City Hall in Orlando saw an estimated crowd of 800 people on the steps of City Hall and on surrounding street corners holding up signs and cheering together “No GMO!” Speakers informed onlookers of some of the many dangers of GMO foods and farming.

The protest in Orlando was part of a global protest organized via Facebook in late February. Each city found local organizers to rally people to their local protest location by using Facebook event pages. This grassroots movement took wings through social networking. Now more and more people are aware that although the federal government states GMO crops and foods are safe, independent research all around the world has shown this to be the opposite. Unfortunately over 90% of all corn, cotton, soybean and canola in the US are produced from biotech-developed genetically modified seed, with alfalfa and sugar beets also gaining market share. It is time for citizens to take back control of their food supply and their environment.

In spite of the US Senate rejecting a bill to allow all states to call for mandatory labeling of GMO Vermont and Connecticut are moving ahead with plans to require GMO labeling for their states. Washington state is also bringing GMO labeling up for a vote this fall. Whole Foods grocery stores are requiring all foods sold in their stores to bear GMO labels by 2018. As more consumers are aware of the dangers of GMO there will be more demand for GMO labeling whether the FDA, the Senate or biotech lobby groups want it or not.

The next local Florida-area non-GMO event is coming up this week. There will be a free showing of Jeffrey Smith’s new movie Genetic Roulette on Thursday June 30th at 7pm at the park building at Donnelly Park in Mt. Dora, FL. Bring your friends and family and learn just how dangerous GMOs are to our health, our environment, our farms and our farmworkers. See a preview of the movie at http://geneticroulettemovie.com/

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